John Mcrae notes



- A certain exclusiveness to the masculinity, also to how Blanche handles her femininity.
- kindness is a questionable concept.

SCENE 1

- may to September, long hot summer.
- most scenes move to the dark of the night.
- multi cultural society.
- soundtrack is emotional undercurrent of music, voices, characters.
- play of atmosphere.
- scene of movement.
- Blanche's appearance is incongruous(out of place)
- expression of shocked disbelief.
- delicate beauty  scared of light.
- constantly trying to make a home in the society that she doesn't fit into.
- ownership and loss - another undercurrent to the play.
- Blanche  - moth like life
- she cant handle the noises
- then starts drinking
- says she doesn't drink but the audience knows she is an alcoholic.
- tragedy of loss
- 'funerals are pretty compared to deaths'
- funerals are a prettification of death

SCENE 2

- pick up of speed
- documentation
- dead hand of past catching up with future
- Blanche is not childless in a tragic way, she's childless in a end of line way, she hasn't got a future.
- epic fornication's
- becoming a multicultural play
- is Blanche already a lost cause?
- is she alive but dead in a person?
- Clutching at doctor because they're a sign for a new life
- Blanche doesn't own anything
- constantly bathing, washing, cleansing, keeping herself away from light.
- 'I was flirting with your husband'
- she flirts because it's the only thing she knows how to do.
- she thinks that's what men want.  -irresponsible- key adjective for Blanche
- she tries to make it up by being pretty.
- Tennessee wants us to fell sympathy and that she just gets around.

SCENE 3

- Poker game
- One of the possible titles
- Poker is male, violent, strong.
- Mitch emerges to have the conversation with Blanche
- She batters her eyelids and calls the toilet, ' the little boys room'
- Mitch represents stability, but lives alone with his mum , would be seen that he is gay, which he is not.
- Gay is a fact not a sensibility and cliche.
- No gallantry in Stanley.

SCENE 4

- almost runs on from previous scene.
- all outside noises are like a choral commentary.
- 'Life goes on'
- Blanche somehow goes on
- desire is very much key
- Blanche does function,
- Contrast between what mind does and what emotions do.
-  audience realizes its a fantasy, but also reality.



Catharsis - release of emotions of fear and pity.

Tragedy - in its pure form, a character from a high social position(king) falls due to their fatal flaws
The end result should be death, but in street car its not literal death.

Tuesday 24th work

Up-hill

-landscape is a metaphor for a spiritual journey -

Rossetti uses landscape in a similar way
- 'The road" is symbolic of a life's path.
- ' up hill' - struggle and suffering
- ' night/dark' are a metaphor for darkness/ doubt
- ' inn' place of refuge from doubts and insecurities
- 'other wayfarers' - people who have already made the journey
- 'that door' - the division between living and the dead.

Power and control

- coverging - lowering own language to fit into a friendship group
- diverging - raise language - authority/ disapproval


Mock essay

Explore the ways Rossetti presents attitudes towards death in this poem and others you have studied.

1) shut out  - "the door was shut' - keeping her away from her place of happiness - imaginatio, place of comfort/ gates to heaven.
2) 'echo' - "watch the slow door That opening, letting in, lets out no more"- barrier to other world(heaven)

Tennessee Williams was born on the 26^th march 1911 in Columbus,  and died on the 25^th February in New York.

His mother and father were Edwina and Cornelius Coffin Williams.

He was an American playwright and author.

A Street Car Named Desire was released in 1947.

Most of Williams’ work was adapted for the cinema, he also wrote short stories, essays, poetry and memoirs.

4 Years before his death, he was added to the American Theatre Hall of Fame

Key quotes for Blanche - 

Is there something wrong with me? - worried for herself 

That's for me, I'm sure. - making herself seem bigger than she is 

I know I fib a good deal. After all, a woman's charm is 50% illusion. - sarcasm 

Key Quotes for Stanley - 

 [pushes her back down roughly] Just keep your seat, I'm not so sure.  -(talking to blanche)

I never met a dame yet that didn't know if she was good-looking or not without being told - criticising women

Key quotes for Stella-

You think you're going bowling now? - to stanley

stella - He smashed all the lightbulbs with the heel of my slipper. 

(blanche)  And you let him? Didn't run, didn't scream?

stella - Actually, I was sorta thrilled by it. 

Post war context

1941, Williams wrote
' I think there is going to be a vast hunger for life after all this death - and

Human emotion 

• grief - "hid their faces" - personification of the sun and moon 
• regretful - "fallen peter weeping bitterly"
• insecurity - "am i a stone" - interrogative - insecure  - ontological(am,be, to be)
• no emotion
• lonely - "yet give not o'er"  - self absorbed, detachment, distance

Characters in Street Car Named Desire

• characters are not real people 
• characters are literally device

-  blanche as a character is a device used by Tennessee Williams to explore the inner conflicts and sense of futility, for the Southern Belle world of his childhood, exemplified for him in the way his mother often behaved and expected her children to behave. 

Useful phrases 

• character is used to...
• illustrate
• connotate 
• reflect
• prompt us to 
• exemplify
• explore 
• 
  

Tennessee Williams - A Street Car Named Desire

- Post WW2  American Play write
- from the south (southern gentility)
- Born in Mississippi
- Alcoholic Travelling Salesmen father ( Cornelius Coffin Williams) and Southern Belle mother
 - Interested in emotional truth
- Gay (from a very conservative background)
- His sister Rose was treated for mental illness and was given a lobotomy in her 30's
- His family moved to st.louis when he was 8

-----------------

John Lahr 'Tennessee Williams: Mad Pilgrimage of the flesh'

3 Things I learnt from the extract

- Close relationship with his sister
- Didn't really have any fond memories
- Seems as if he didn't like change
- Cats are symbolic for brutality

In the round tower at Jhansi 

Context 

- Indian mutany - British were violently overthrown by the indian sepoys( a type of soldier)

- Captain Skene and his family were murdered but in Rossetti's version, they take their own lives.

 Why does she alter the story in the way she does?

---------------------

key points 

- Indian Empire - Queen's crown and jewel 

- Indians held against their will( mutany) 

- Unravelled the British Empire( lost stability)

- Poets want to mark the key moments in historical events.

- Taking a wild location gives leeway for more emotion

- Round tower symbolises entrapment  

Poetic Techniques used by Rossetti

How does Rossetti use character and other poetic techniques to comment on Victorian society in ‘MC’ and ‘NTYJ’?

In both of the poems written by Christina Rossetti, ‘Maude Clare’ and ‘No, thank you, John’ She uses different poetic techniques and characterisation to portray society in the 1830’s and also to make the point that in the 1830’s society, if you didn’t have money, there would be nothing you could do, such as marry the person you love.

Rossetti belittles men in both of the poems, in ‘No, Thank you, John’ she says “Use your common sense” This makes John seem pathetic and powerless. In ‘Maude Clare’  ‘The Lord’ is only ever referred to as ‘The Lord’ he is more of a title not a character. This shows his status is aristocratic, on the other hand, this shows his lack of power in the situation. Rossetti swaps the social ‘norm’ so that the women seem more powerful than the men and to make them look desperate and pathetic.

Both of the poems have a simple rhyme scheme of every other line rhyming, in ‘No, thank you, John’, the seconds and fourth line rhyme, and the same for ‘Maude Clare’ and example of this from ‘Maude Clare’ is “My Lord is pale... and Nell was pale with pride; My Lord gazed... Or ever he kissed the bride” The effect of the rhyming pattern is that it gives a very clear 4:3 metre, meaning it has more of a rhythm and easier to follow.

The 4:3 metre also emphasises certain words in the line, for example in ‘Maude Clare’, “His bride was like a village maid” the emphasis on “maid” brings it to the reader’s attention that this was unacceptable in the 1830’s that you should marry anyone of a lower class.

Overall in both poems, love and unrequited love are strong themes expressed. By using different poetic techniques, Rossetti puts her own point across as well as the society’s point in the 1830’s.

I am 
Sat on the bus, thinking,
just for a second.
What life would be like,
for another bus rider

I am
Sat on the bus
looking out, watching,
everyone that goes by,
walking, cycling, running.

I am 
Sat on the bus
waiting for my stop
3 stops. 2 stops. my stop.

I am
Sat on the bus
going work. its a friday.
Tomorrow I go on holiday,
far,far away.

I am 
Sat on the bus. Connecting,
updating,
facebook, twitter, instagram,
like, retweet, double tap.
my stop now, disconnected.

I am
In my own world.
on my own.
Alone.
3 stops. 2 stops. My stop.